


The Boundaries of Touch

by Tammany



Series: Mycroft's Vulnerable [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, M/M, erotic elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:27:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Still working on "Dancing with the Lightning." That said, this grows out of some of the character conjecture I've been doing in the META stuff. </p><p>This is character study in a totally speculative framework. It's Mystrade, of a sort, and it's even romantic. It's got erotic elements. It's just not what I think people expect of any of those things. It's dysfunctional but-still-standing Mycroft, and empathic but pretty tough and non-sentimental Greg. It's non-romantic romance. It's erotica with no sex worth mentioning.</p><p>I hope you like it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boundaries of Touch

 

Desire and Terror, those twin harpies, harried Mycroft from sleep to panicked arousal—breath panting, blood racing, skin a-creep with fear and lust, adrenaline-drunk and shaking. He was achingly hard with morning wood and damp with the muck-sweat of both horror and longing.

He wrapped his arms around himself and rocked, closing his eyes against the faint pre-dawn light seeping past the heavy curtains of his bedroom. The dream had been so vivid; the reactions it had triggered so intense…

Mycroft couldn’t recall the last time he’d dreamed so deeply, or fallen so completely under a dream’s spell. He was a grown man, now. A man of reason and control. A man with many fears, but few that seemed to linger in his subconscious, much less set off flash-floods of emotional turmoil. His dreams, when he recalled them, were often quixotic, amusing things: epic narratives of dancing cats on quests to obtain daisies that, within the dream, were explicitly mythic in their importance. Or old men told Boy Mycroft and a shadowy Boy Sherlock stories of local gymkhanas with evangelical zealotry while judging varieties of quince jam spread on toast soldiers.

Mycroft didn’t dream of sex, and when he did it was reliably drab in its pedestrian, lackluster eroticism. Almost unworthy of the term “wet-dream.” Indeed, sometimes he woke bored by his own mental erotica, too indifferent to finish the job before rising and getting on with the day.

This dream had been different. He could call it back in every detail, and even in memory the details triggered cold panic and hot, hot longing.

He’d stood naked, and very aware of his nakedness, as though warm water had run over every curve and plane—though no water had flowed. He’d been bashful in a way he’d not been bashful for years, with the shaking uncertainty of his lost teens—he could recall within the dream fearing his lover would see him and find him disappointing. His hands had lightly shielded his crotch, hiding his genitals from sight. He’d ducked his head, stricken with shyness and desire.

His lover had stood behind him, close—so close—hands first resting on Mycroft’s shoulders. He’d leaned in and kissed Mycroft lightly on the nape of his neck, breathed softly into the short hair at the back of his skull. His hands had wandered, then, tenderly moving over Mycroft’s body, ranging down his chest, over his belly, inching toward his hidden parts. He’d murmured something—Mycroft wasn’t sure what. Perhaps the dream had specified nothing but that it was loving.

That part, though, had been certain. Lying under the light blanket and sheets, soothing himself, he knew the words had been sweet—so very sweet. Love talk…something kind and rich and heady…

Memory of the beloved dead hovered too close. Tears threatened to steal Mycroft’s control. It had been so long since anyone had spoken sweet, tender words to him. As long as it had been since he’d allowed anyone, lover or otherwise, to stand casually behind him, press so close against his back and shoulders, trace the lines of his body, whisper in his ear.

He’d set all that aside after that first heartbreaking loss. Losing it once was bad enough. Never again. It had come too close to destroying him. He was not born under a lover’s star, he thought, nor was he made to safely weather the storms of feeling. He’d learned his limits. Best to have found out early, he supposed. Best to learn his weaknesses, his failings. Other men loved and lost and rose up no less able in the morning. Mycroft, however, was not made of such strong stuff. Learning that, he’d planned accordingly.

In the dream, though, his lover had touched him. Leaned softly into him, erection pressed against Mycroft’s buttocks, arms pulling him close and closer still. His lover had made love to him, and he’d allowed it, longed for it, reveled in it…

The thought alone was so terrifying it drove him from his bed, sent him racing to the lavatory, where he plowed frantically through his morning rituals, driving the nightmare away.

An hour later, groomed to perfection, polished and prim and suited properly, he stood looking in his bedroom mirror, searching for the comforting image of the Iceman. The Iceman was reflected back, perfect in every detail but one. Unfortunately it was the one crucial detail: his eyes, the cool, misty blue of chalcedony, looked from his still, stern face with all the uncertain hesitation of his youth.

oOo

The meeting between Holmes and Lestrade had gone much as Lestrade had expected: short, to the point, with only a few items of interest for mutual review. Several of Sherlock’s bellwether surveillance subjects were on the move, but so far Lestrade hadn’t been able to determine any pattern or even anything that could qualify as a coincidence. Even so he’d reported their actions and all associated information in full to the senior Holmes. Mycroft didn’t have Sherlock’s feel for London, but between them he and Lestrade could usually determine basic levels of threat. Mycroft on his side reported the death of a primary strategist in Qaeda, a rogue Macedonian nationalist who’d escaped capture and who was suspected of having gone to ground in London under an assumed identity—MI6 asked MI5 to kindly keep a weather-eye out and give a shout if they saw him. A few more items of similar importance and immediacy, and they were done for the month. As they gathered up their files and thumb drives, Lestrade asked, “Any word from himself?”

Mycroft, who’d seemed edgy the whole meeting, even for Mycroft, shrugged and pulled a face. “None. On the other hand, my agents in Romania say he passed through a few weeks ago and won all their discretionary fund plus a bottle of plum brandy playing poker. He might at least have sent back word and the plum brandy: he doesn’t drink it.”

“Do you?” Lestrade asked, leaning back in his chair. These closing minutes of their meeting usually determined what happened next…and were entertaining in their own right.

Mycroft gave him a very dour look. “As it happens, yes. I developed a taste when I was working in Kosovo as a young man.”

Lestrade whistled. “Not fun.”

“There are reasons I don’t like ‘leg-work’,” Mycroft said. “The plum brandy was far from sufficient compensation.”

Lestrade nodded, then asked the question. “What next? Diogenes? Or not?”

Mycroft seemed to waver, then set his jaw. “Not, I think. Apologies.”

“None needed,” Lestrade said, sincerely. He stood and started packing his materials into his briefcase. “Just…are you all right? You’ve seemed tense today.”

“I merely slept badly.”

Lestrade’s intuition pinged, hard. He studied Mycroft. “You’re sure it’s not something an hour or so ‘at the club’ wouldn’t help?”

Mycroft almost seemed to wince—which, Lestrade thought, should not be possible. Not in the man he’d come to know.

He still wasn’t sure what to call them. “Lovers” was far too fluffy and sugary a term. “Shag partners” came closer, but was a bit grubby and gritty to describe anything Mycroft was involved in. Sometimes Lestrade played around trying to coin a term that would serve. “Sexual collaborators?” No—too WWII helping-the-Nazis. “Colleagues with the occasional quickie on the side?” Maybe.

The truth was, Lestrade usually ended up just deciding that they were a sexually efficient answer to an inefficient question. One meeting per month, one quick, clean orgasm each, on average. Some months , not. Some months they averaged higher on both meetings and orgasms. But in the end it was neat and remarkably effective no-strings sex.

Mycroft had first approached Lestrade about the option after Sherlock’s death. Lestrade had deduced easily enough that their relationship had just been demoted far enough for Mycroft to no longer feel it was fishing in the office pool, as it were: with Sherlock gone and no idea when he’d be back—if ever—Lestrade was no longer too close to suit Mycroft’s notions of professional propriety.

Which had suited Lestrade perfectly well. He’d still been reeling a bit after the divorce, and in spite of knowing Sherlock was alive, well…the loss of the younger Holmes had left such enormous turmoil in its wake, including little things like having less to do with the elder Holmes. The offer had satisfied any number of needs for Lestrade, including some he’d not even realized he had. It was, he was surprised to realize, a bit flattering to know Mycroft considered him a good choice for whatever the hell it was they did.

What they did had rules. They’d been easy rules—Mycroft had laid them out simply at the very start. No anal sex given or expected. Oral and hands, yes, though thighs were preferred. If anyone was to be behind anyone, it was Mycroft. “Training and experience have made it difficult for me to be comfortable with someone lurking where I can’t see them,” he’d said, in that dry, controlled voice. “And it’s so hard to climax while your subconscious is wondering about guns and garrotes.” No kissing. No sentiment. On the other hand, good conversation before and after was to be welcomed, and Mycroft was always glad to ensure there was good scotch and brandy on the premises. His rooms at the Diogenes—their usual choice of venue—had a comfortable bed and good bathroom with a superb shower. Though Greg never slept there, he was comfortable during their encounters.

The main thing was that it was not a “relationship.” Mycroft made very clear going in that it was not intended as such, would not become such, and if Lestrade started pining for such, other arrangements would be made that would not include him.

Lestrade, on the whole, found it a good deal all around. Yes, on occasion he found himself wondering if he hadn’t come to like Sherlock’s older brother a bit more than the strictest interpretation of “no relationship” might suggest, but he didn’t pine between meetings, or find himself moping on occasions like this, when Mycroft wasn’t interested. If, occasionally, he found he felt some of the warm protectiveness he’d felt toward Sherlock, or the same amused and tender awareness of how peculiarly fragile the Holmes Boys were under their veneers of reserve, well… it wasn’t the same thing as loving Mycroft, exactly. Collegial fondness, no more.

Which explained entirely why he felt this prickle of uneasiness as Mycroft packed up his information and straightened his office desk.

“Maybe go out for a drink for a change? Just relax?” Lestrade ventured. “Been a hard week. Wouldn’t mind company over a pint.”

Mycroft considered, then nodded. “Though you’ll forgive me if I choose single malt scotch?”

“Consider yourself absolved.”

The evening went well. They went to one of Lestrade’s favorite pubs—a clean, modern place he had no fear Mycroft would find too crass or low. They drank a bit. Talked broad world issues a bit—far less detailed than their real work, but suited to the venue. Lestrade told a few blue jokes. Mycroft responded with a near endless run of slightly off-color witticisms. They both finished at about the same time, and were on their way. It would have been entirely unworthy of note, if Mycroft, stepping out of the pub, hadn’t managed one of those classic, ordinary, drab human-being stunts of misgauging the depth of the step, half-turning his ankle, and falling to the footpath with a grunt.

Lestrade had leaned over, helping him up, giving him support to move into a sitting position on the step. Then, while Mycroft had grumbled and muttered and tested his ankle, trying to decide if there was any real damage—and sworn about his trousers, which definitely had taken a hit—Lestrade hunkered just behind his shoulder and laid his palm on the nape of the man’s neck in the kind of soothing, comforting gesture that stood him in good stead during so many interactions with the friends and families of victims.

oOo

I’ve made a complete fool of myself, Mycroft thought, later. He sat on the edge of his bed, fretfully kneading his ankle, prodding at the slight swelling caused by his fall.

He had apologized, profusely. Well, of course he had: Lestrade had done nothing wrong, been nothing but kind. In return he’d been treated, for one short minute, like Evil Incarnate.

It was embarrassing just recalling it. Mycroft had jerked away from his hand, turning as he did, moving into a defensive position. And then? “You will not touch me!” Good lord, he’d sounded like the Victorian governess in a gothic bodice ripper.

He tried to sleep. Eventually he did sleep. When he woke in the morning he knew he couldn’t leave it where it was.

He picked his phone up from the nightstand, and dialed Lestrade.

“Hello?”

“Mgggph Whas’….oh. Morning, Mycroft. Trouble?”

Clearly the man was not yet fully awake. In spite of that, Mycroft perservered. “No. No trouble. But after last night, I think you deserve an explanation. Tonight, the Diogenes, dinner and nothing else planned but talk?”

He heard Lestrade flop in his bed…and, yes, he was quite sure that was Lestrade scratching a stubbled cheek as he tried to think through the morning haze. “Uh. Yeah? Uh…but there’s no need. Know better than to get too close behind you. Just wasn’t thinking of it in that setting.”

“No. But…You’ll be there?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there.”

When the call was done, Mycroft tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach. This was going to be unpleasant in the extreme.

oOo

Lestrade had no idea what to expect that night. Well—he knew there would be a good dinner sent up from the club kitchens, and good drink always in stock, and comfortable leather club chairs in front of the small fireplace in the parlor of the suite. All that went without saying. But the rest was a mystery.

Mycroft met him in the Stranger’s Lounge, as always, and accompanied him up to the private rooms. Lestrade decided he’d never seen the man so tense, other than in circumstances pertaining to Sherlock. During times Sherlock was using. During times he’d been injured. During times he’d gone missing.

Otherwise Mycroft tended to keep a steady head and a calm, if alert poise. On the way up, though, everything about him shrieked tension—it was almost like having Sherlock and his noisy emotional static back.

Mycroft ushered him into the suite, and proceeded to play good host with a rigid, ritual aplomb that left Lestrade uncomfortable and without conversation. They limped their way through an otherwise splendid meal—rare beef rib, crisp salad, pleasant roasted beet root. The silences punctuated by diplomatic small talk, though, did the food a disservice.

At last they were done, and settled in club chairs by the fire, drinks in hand.

“I suppose you’re waiting for an explanation,” Mycroft said, staring down into his drink. His voice had a trace of Sherlock’s sulkiness—someone driven to do something he didn’t want to do and resenting the obligations that forced him to it.

Lestrade sighed. “I told you. No need. If you want to tell me something, then, sure. But yesterday doesn’t need any more apology or explanation than you gave me already.”

Mycroft didn’t look at Lestrade. Instead he looked over to the fire, and stared fixedly, a cat watching the flicker of motion and imagining mice. “I’m afraid,” he said, softly, “I was once rather a young fool.”

“You mean just like the rest of humanity?” Lestrade said, amused. “It’s not exactly a rare condition.”

Mycroft nodded. “You are, of course, correct. And if I’d considered myself just like the rest of humanity, I might have compensated a bit better. As it was, I was far too used to being right about things. It warps one’s sense of reality, to be right so much of the time. It becomes far too easy to think one will be right all of the time, and under all conditions.”

Which, from a Holmes, was rather like lying prostrate on the floor, flogging himself, and shouting “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” for an hour or two. Lestrade rolled the admission around in his mind, trying to figure out where it was going. He decided he had not so much as a clue.

“Can’t say I’ve experienced even limited omniscience,” he said. “So I’m afraid I can’t say I really get it. But I think I got the basic idea down. So—back in your salad days, when life was all cherry tomatoes and balsamic dressing, you made a real corker of a mistake?”

Mycroft nodded. Then he sat silent so long Lestrade began to wonder if that was it—the whole “explanation.” It wasn’t impossible to believe Mycroft Holmes had called him here, fed him well, and plonked him in front of the fire for an explanation that consisted of “I behaved like a rabid ferret yesterday because I was just as dumb as any other young punk once.”

Eventually, though, he sighed. “I did indeed make a mistake. I…” he grimaced. “I fell in love.”

Which explained his current agony, Lestrade thought. Neither Mycroft nor Sherlock had much patience with that icky-bad love stuff. Still…

“I’m told it’s a common event.”

“You’re amused. It wasn’t amusing, I’m afraid. I was quite smitten. He was an aide to Margaret Thatcher. Quite dashing. Good family—better than mine. Money—more than I had at the time. Class? My goodness, yes. I was just a young MI6 staffer. I’d done some field work, but was segueing into analysis at that point. My mentors were excited by me, but I can’t pretend anyone else was at that point in my life. I’d come out a year earlier, and I can’t say Mummy was impressed. Nor Sherlock. My work was at the time every bit as much a ‘minor position in the government’ as it’s possible to be. I was plump and gawky at the same time, with red hair that stopped traffic, limited clothing sense, and freckles. Many, many freckles. And, of course, the beak.” He reflexively reached up and tapped his nose, grimacing, without looking away from the fire. “Andrew seemed to see through all that. Seemed to look through it, and see something inside that was different.”

Lestrade closed his eyes. The first faint tones of tragedy had already crept into Mycroft’s voice—that still, controlled voice that fought to give away nothing. Big, staring eyes were empty—but still seemed to expect pain. Lestrade set his jaw. “This story’s going to end really badly, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“How badly?”

“Badly enough to explain yesterday.”

“Yesterday wasn’t that bad, Mycroft.”

“Yesterday was far worse than you know.”

“Well, that much is obvious.” Without opening his eyes, Lestrade drank down a substantial portion of his scotch. “All right, then. Keep calm and carry on.”

Mycroft grunted very softly, a sound that might have been agreement, or pain, or just stalling for time.

“The Soviet Union hadn’t fallen, yet, but it was falling. It was 1990. I was twenty-one. I’d been working with MI6 since I’d entered uni. They recruited me young. I think my maths tutor recommended me, but I never did learn who passed my name up the line. They’d started me with code work, though that’s more and more a computer boffin’s game these days. Then they had me running messages. By the end of my second year we were putting together an accelerated program for me, to get me through Oxford with an advanced degree as fast as possible. Meanwhile they had me doing actual field work in one of the science R&D labs. It was theoretically part of working my way through college. It was really an attempt to keep an eye on some of our top genetics talent. Anyway. By the time I was twenty-one, I was full MI6, had an advanced degree in game theory and another in linguistics, and knew nothing—absolutely nothing—about life. I’d barely learned how to drink beer, and that had taken all my free time in the final three years of my time at uni. Which should suggest more about how little time I actually had than about how slowly I studied the brewers’ arts.”

“Soft and pink and dewy eyed?”

Lestrade couldn’t see the face Mycoft made, but he didn’t have to. “What a repulsive description. Unfortunately, I fear it’s reasonably accurate.”

“God shouldn’t leave innocence lying around in the open like that. It’s a cruel temptation to the help. Someone’s absolutely sure to nick it eventually, and then there’s tears before teatime. Count on it.”

Mycroft sputtered. “I find myself wishing I’d known you at the time. I might have benefited from your merry morbidity.”

“Nah. Let’s see, I’d have been about twenty-six, then. Such morbidity I had came from a short stint trying to impress a cute goth girl I’d been dating. Entirely fake, at the time. It took a lot of years in the Met to really perfect my advanced mordancy skills. So. Let’s see. There’s you, fresh as an April morn. And there’s this Andrew fellow—who’s a catastrophe waiting to happen why?”

“The thing with the Soviet Union, I’m afraid.”

“Yes?”

“He was a deep cover agent. Trained from childhood. Sent over in his teens. As the USSR fell apart, the agents abroad panicked, especially after civilians began breaking into KGB offices and looting the records. They were terrified they’d be outed, you see. So they were dealing with anyone they thought could provide them with cover and escape hatches.”

“And your Andrew turned to you?” The silence was profound… the kind of profound that told Lestrade he’d gotten it desperately wrong. He opened his eyes. Mycroft’s face was still, and smooth—and utterly ruined. “No,” Lestrade said, as it sank in. “He didn’t turn to you. He used you as the bargaining chip for something else. Some other agent.”

Mycroft nodded. “He used me. And he was going to turn me over to them.”

“Them?”

“I…was never fully informed of who wished to obtain me and my information. Deduction leads me to suspect a rogue faction in Mossad, though.”

Lestrade sipped cautiously at the remains of the scotch. “He was planning on handing you over?”

“We’d gone to a private park. He was… we were…” He looked at Lestrade for the first time, eyes hard and challenging, covering over the hurt. “I was young, damn it. I thought… We’d go out, sometimes. There was a little grove in Hyde Park. We’d meet there, sometimes. It was…” He couldn’t say it.

Lestrade said it for him, gently. “It was private, and romantic, and you’d go like any young couple to neck and cuddle, right?”

Mycroft nodded.

“What happened?”

Mycroft shrugged. “Another team in MI6 was onto the people who wanted me. They didn’t know what was on, but they were tracking and following. They’d worked out that something was going down. I think it was the Mossad agents who panicked. Then it was guns. Then it was…over.”

“Oh.”

“The thing is, I wasn’t mad. Even later, when I understood what had happened. I didn’t understand, then. All I knew was that everything went crazy.”

Lestrade could imagine it, easily enough. A young, innocent gay man in the 90s, catching a small, sweet bit of romance on a dim evening, only to end up with his lover lying dead in the shadows under the trees, blood-shadow mixing with leaf-shadow as the sirens began to whoop blocks away. It was the sort of scene just made for the stage. Romeo and Juliet dying of the stupidity of youth mingling with the stupidity of adults. West Side Story, with Maria walking off set in an impromptu funeral cortege as the orchestra played “There’s a Time for Us.” It was soaked through with the misery of a thousand stupid, brutal conclusions to stories that should have had happy endings.

“Even after the briefing…” Mycroft stopped, then, and tried again. “I suppose they thought I’d be angry with Andrew. But all I could think—all I can think is that I got it wrong. I didn’t see the obvious. If I had, maybe I could have helped him. Or picked someone else.” He grimaced. “Whatever else, one thing was clear. I’m simply not very good at… that. I get…stupid.”

Lestrade didn’t try to argue. You don’t argue that kind of point with a man who’s turned most of his adult life into a sacrifice based on what you think is a remarkably incorrect conclusion. Such conversations tend to get messy without fixing anything. Instead he got up and found the scotch bottle. “More?”

“A little.”

“So,” he said as he poured for both of them, “you swore off the sauce, as it were?”

Mycroft nodded.

“And all the rules?”

“They…work for me.”

“Nothing that might make you feel all warm and fuzzy and Valentine’s Day-ish.”

Mycroft nodded.

“Nothing that feels… personal.”

This time Mycroft just offered up a slight half-grin, the outer edge of one side of his mouth rising.

“Nothing that means giving up one bit more control than necessary to come like crazy, and then pack it all away till next time.”

That didn’t even rate the flicked grin.

Lestrade considered, as he sat back in the leather chair. “And having someone… what? Just put an arm around you? Be with you when you were hurt? That was enough to…”

Mycroft wouldn’t look at Lestrade. “I dreamed, the night before last. I told you, I didn’t sleep well.”

“Dreamed?”

Lestrade watched Mycroft struggle to find words that didn’t land him deep in emotional territory. He failed, and too clearly hurt in the process of failing. “Of…being held. Being… touched.”

Ah. “So you were primed.”

“Yes. When you tried to help me, it was too much like the dream.”

A hand on the back. That’s all it had been. Lestrade could recall it easily, the palm of his hand remembering the warmth, the pressure, the faint dampness of a living body under Mycroft’s suit. A hand on his back had been all the trigger Mycroft needed—that and a bad dream.

“So. You’ve built yourself walls, right? All the rules. All the limits—to protect yourself, right?”

“To keep me from making the same mistake twice.”

“We’ll take that up some other time, maybe. Not the time for me to say anything about that. Just making sure I understand the basics, yeah?”

Mycroft nodded.

“And when you fell, and I helped you up, then touched you—and was just behind you—it slipped in under your defenses. Came in and broke down the walls.”

“Yes.”

Mycroft sounded like a man who’d been forced to admit to some shameful crippling. Lestrade really wanted to swear at him. So much hurt, and for so many wrongheaded reasons. Why did Holmeses have to try to address emotion with logic? They knew they were bad at it…

But it wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the night for telling Mycroft he was an utter prat. Lestrade had been given this much, and it was time to accept it, reassure Mycroft—and get out, before he said something stupid that would make sure there was never a time to say more. He sighed.

“Ok. I think I understand. At least—it’s a start. Look, me, I don’t think you’re so bad. And you didn’t need to apologize. But I thank you for telling me. Let me think about it, some? Please? Talk about it again?”

“Once isn’t enough?” Mycroft asked, sourly.

“I’m stupid, me. Not a Holmes. Give me time to work it around a bit. Takes me time to process, okay?” Which was a better thing to say than, “Please give me a week to figure out a diplomatic way to tell you you’ve been a complete muggins.”

He stood. “Look. Been a good night. I really appreciate you explaining. But—it’s late. I…”

“Yes, of course,” Mycoft said, returning instantly to the bland “good host” of earlier. “Here, let me see you to the door….”

Lestrade nodded. He put the scotch glass on the dinner table with the remains of the meal, then allowed Mycroft to lead him to the door. .

Lestrade moved forward, took the door handle—then he turned, slowly. “No.  Just… no. Look, Mycroft…” he faltered, then.

“Yes?” Mycroft said, eyes uneasy.

“Look, can you let me do one thing?”

“Excuse me?”

“Just one thing. I know—I know you’ve got these walls. These rules. I think I get why. But—you’ve drawn your lines too tight. Your boundaries are too narrow, ok? If a bad dream and a trip on a stair and a hand on your shoulder’s enough to flip you, you’ve drawn the boundaries to close.”

Mycroft gazed at him, warily. “I…admit I’m hard put to argue that point, but I can’t claim to be convinced.”

“I know. Let me---ok, this isn’t a pick-up. I’m not asking you to let me make a move on you. Just, let me try something. Please?”

“What?”

“Rules: No one behind you. No one touching you—not really. Sex. No intimacy, though. Right?”

Mycroft’s lips tightened, anger simmering too close. But he nodded.

“All right. Let me try to… Please, just turn around, all right?”

Mycroft stood still as a stone statue.

Lestrade sighed, then cautiously, slowly, stepped around him, turning to stand close behind him. “Just let me try, OK?”

Mycroft gave a very small, curt nod.

Lestrade eased his arms around the other man, stepping close.

Mycroft continued to imitate stone.

Lestrade leaned gently forward, and pulled Mycroft back just as gently. “Just relax.”

“You sound like my dentist.”

“If you’re as tense in the chair as you are here, I don’t blame him. Probably thinks you’re going to bite him.”

“I did once.”

“See? Really. Just lean back.”

Mycroft huffed, but leaned back. Lestrade eased his arms a bit further around, locking his hands together. He leaned his head against the top vertebra of Mycroft’s spine. He let himself relax, even if Mycroft showed no sign of easing.

They stood. And stood.

“Is there a chance you’re done, yet?”

“Thinking about it,” Lestrade said, reluctantly. “Bit longer? Keep hoping you’ll trust me.”

“I trust you. It’s me I don’t trust.”

“Then trust me to trust you for you.”

“That makes no sense.”

“It makes perfectly good sense. You aren’t as good a judge of you as I am. Believe me, you can trust you.”

“What are we doing?”

“Getting past your stupid boundaries.”

Mycroft snorted. “Or not. As the case may be.” And then he chuffed, a half-laugh—and as he did so Lestrade felt something shift.

Mycroft leaned further back. Muscles relaxed. His hands floated to cover Lestrade’s. His breathing eased.

Lestrade didn’t dare comment. Mycroft, on the other hand, said, softly, “It’s an act of will, you know. I’m not exactly at ease. Is it enough to satisfy you?”

Lestrade chuckled. “It’s enough to start. Mycroft, you’ve got to work on this. You made a mess of dumb mistakes back then, but this has got to be the dumbest. This is no way to live.”

Mycroft continued to lean on Lestrade, even letting his head tip back to lie against Lestrade’s. “It’s served me so far.”

Lestrade didn’t answer. He just stood, letting Mycroft lean on him until he could feel them both twitching, about to overload. Then he nudged softly, and as Mycroft straightened, he let go. He walked around Mycroft, and went to the door. “Good. Thanks. I feel better, now. Look—you’ll call again, won’t you?”

Mycroft nodded. “I don’t think we’ve exceeded my endurance. Yet. Don’t push it, though, DI Lestrade.”

Lestrade nodded. “Yeah, ok. But you think about it all. Really, you’ve got to reset those limits.”

“I’ll consider it.”

“Yeah.”

And then, before they dissolved into pointless one-word comments, Lestrade opened the door and left.

oOo

Mycroft dreamed that night—a gentler dream than before. But when he woke he knew that those twin harpies, Desire and Terror, harried him awake now, as well as asleep—and Desire, at least, was gaining on him.


End file.
